About. a year ago, two card collectors, @Iowa_Dave_Sportscards and @Paper_and_Chrome, started chatting over Instagram about their collections. Their real names concealed, it would be months before one of them realized the truth about the history of their relationship: close friends growing up who had lost touch after high school. This is the story of how cards helped Greg and Dave reunite after 30 years.

Sometimes a mistake is the best thing that can happen to us.

After greed, it's the sports-card hobby's greatest affliction: FOMO. The fear of missing out. Recent research has sought how to combat FOMO, with much of that research focusing on an antidote: JOMO — the joy of missing out. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a start. Let's dig in.

We all want to feel like we're in control of our own destiny, but a little more than two years ago, a moment of luck and an act of kindness sent me down a new path in the sports-card hobby. This is that story.

Until two days ago, Mark Sanchez (@mjs_sportscards on IG) had never lived his hobby life as a dealer. Now, with his first card show behind him, Mark reflects on the experience. How did he prepare? How did it go? And what inspired him to do it in the first place?

The Shallow End is hosted by Dave Schwartz (@Iowa_Dave_Sportscards)

Kevin (@Colorado.Collector on Instagram) started back in the hobby by trying to collect his favorite Colorado Rockies. Several years later, he's built a PC that is both deeply personal and full of the types of cards that many collectors can only dream of. The Shallow End is hosted by Dave Schwartz. Follow him on IG at @Iowa_Dave_Sportscards.

You watch them on the field. You track their cards across eBay and MySlabs. And you daydream about adding them to your collection – for better or worse. They're the players who cause FOMO: the fear of missing out.

Some of us in the sports-card hobby spend more time on eBay than we do with our families. But it's important to remember that eBay doesn't exist to give us a place to hang out. It exists to separate us from our money.

Lots of us have done it. We don't want a card, but we buy it. Why? To get our card fix? For the rush? To keep our PC's from getting stale? Whatever the reason, it's a crucial issue within the sports-card hobby: the decision to buy when we shouldn't be buying. In this episode, Mike (@thegolfcardcollector) and Dave (@Iowa_Dave_Sportscards) put themselves under the microscope to begin exploration of this important hobby question.

Dave (@Iowa_Dave_Sportscards on IG) sent cards off to grade. Now his card funds are tied up for the next 40-60 business days. Which means that for the next couple of months the collecting part of his collection is kind of … stuck. In this episode, we talk about what it means to be standing still in the sports-card space.